Military + Environment (Land/Sea/Sky)

In the Marianas...

Environmental Impact Statements are important because they are often the primary means by which we citizens and local organizations in the Marianas find out about the changes that the military plans to enact on our island environments. The military often announces scoping and commenting periods for their Environmental Impact Statements in the Marianas. Public participation in the EIS process is essential since it offers an opportunity for citizens to engage in the process. Whether or not you feel that your comments count in the overall discussion is a different question. While the military is not the only institution that prepares these statements, they are one way for us to inform ourselves about their plans.

Some Facts about Environmental Impact Statements

"An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is a document prepared to describe the effects for proposed activities on the environment. It was created by the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 as a way to ensure that people were documenting the how the environment was being affected by projects on public lands.

"Environment," in this case, means...the natural and physical environment and the relationship of people with that environment. This means that the "environment" considered in an EIS includes land, water, air, structures, living organisms, environmental values at the site, and the social, cultural, and economic aspects.

An "impact" is a change in consequence that results from an activity. Impacts can be positive or negative or both. An EIS describes impacts, as well as ways to "mitigate" impacts.

To "mitigate" means to lessen or remove negative impacts.

An 'impact' is gauged according to which resources will be affected. For example, how will impacts affect public safety of health? Wetlands, floodplains or ecologically sensitive areas? Important scientific, cultural, or historic resources? Threatened or endangered species or their habitat? Impacts are also gauged according to how controversial they are, how likely they are to cause uncertain impacts or unique and unknown risks, whether they will pave the way for future actions, are part of any larger proposals and how likely they are to violate any law of requirement imposed to protect the environment. (source: http://www.nature.nps.gov/protectingrestoring/DO12Site/04_EISs/042_criteria.htm)

To learn more about the detailed process of how EIS's are created, edited and finalized, click here.